India miss last bus to CT

BREDA : India’s quest for their maiden Champions Trophy hockey title remained unaccomplished as they lost 1-3 to defending champions Australia via a penalty shootout in the summit clash of the 37th and final edition of the tournament. India came agonisingly close to securing their maiden Champions Trophy triumph, only to be denied by a valiant show by Australia goalkeeper Tyler Lovell. The match went into the shootout after both the teams were locked at 1-1 in regulation time. But the Kookaburras’ custodian produced a stellar show in the shootout, denying Sardar Singh, Harmanpreet Singh and Lalit Upadhayay while Manpreet Singh was the only scorer for India.Australia, on the other hand, converted their first two efforts in the shootout through Aran Zalewski and Daniel Beale before Indian goalkeeper PR Sreejesh denied Matthew Swann and Tom Craig. But Jeremy Edwards converted the last try to hand Australia their record 15th Champions Trophy title.But the Indians can take heart from the fact that they matched Australia for the entire 60 minutes, even dominated the proceedings for a better part of the game but the strikers failed to utilise the numerous chances in front of an agile Lovell. It was Australia who took the lead in the 24th minute through Blake Govers who converted their only penalty corner. But it was India who had better chances initially in the form of two back-to-back penalty corners inside the first 10 minutes but they wasted both.In the 13th minute, Dilpreet Singh’s hit was blocked by an Australian defender before it fell on the path of SV Sunil who failed to control the ball. India secured their third penalty corner in the 18th minute but Harmanpreet’s flick was blocked by Australia. In the 24th minute, Sreejesh pulled off a brilliant save to deny Aaron Kleinschmidt, but from the resultant move, Australia secured their only short-corner and Govers made no mistake to give his side the lead.